Embodiments of the inventive subject matter generally relate to the field of data processing, and, more particularly, to active control of collaborative devices
A service gateway is an OSGI-compliant host server, server software installed and running on server computer hardware. “OSGI” refers to the Open Services Gateway Initiative, a computing industry organization developing specifications for service gateways, including specifications for delivery of “service bundles.” OSGI service bundles are software middleware providing compliant data communications and services through service gateways. The Open Services Gateway specification is a java based application layer framework that gives service providers, network operator device makers, and appliance manufacturer's vendor neutral application and device layer APIs and functions. An “API” is an Application Program Interface, a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications.
A service gateway usually is a home or business server, a separate computer coupled for data communications through a local area network or “LAN” to client devices. Client devices include any device capable of adaptation for data communications, including, for example, automobiles, vending machines, cash registers, gasoline pumps, RFID readers, clocks, window shade controllers, door locks, smoke detectors, proximity detectors, television sets, radios, electric light switches, thermostats, thermometers, air conditioners, heaters, medical monitoring equipment, refrigerators, cook tops on stoves, ovens, coffee makers, water heaters, and so on.
A service gateway usually is an embedded server inserted in a LAN not only for providing data communications among client devices, but also to connect a wide area network or “WAN,” such as an external internet or extranet, to internal client devices within a home, office, or business setting. A service gateway often is an embedded server installed and running in the same physical device or cabinet with a client device.
“Embedded server” means a Java embedded server, a small-footprint application server that can be embedded in any networked device, home gateway, or client device. Embedded servers typically are zero-administration devices intended, when implemented as service gateways, to divide a network architecture into an external WAN and an internal LAN. An embedded server manages services deployed from trusted external resources to internal client devices over a network, including for example, services implemented through OSGI-compliant service bundles. Embedded servers enable deployment and installation of services, such as OSGI-compliant service bundles, on a just-in-time basis, when the services are needed from time to time for use by client devices.
All of the architecture so described, the service gateways, the service bundles, the client devices coupled through a LAN, the service gateway downloading service bundles when needed to provide services through a client device, all of this, has the effect of controlling individual client devices, with no collaboration among the devices. In the architecture so described, a user can, for example, log in to a service gateway and reset the desired temperature on a thermostat. The thermostat would then turn on a heater if, for example, the actual temperature were lower than the desired temperature. Raising a window shade on a warm, bright day, however, can also increase temperature in a room, and sunlight generally is both less expensive to operate than a heater and less environmentally demanding, although the benefits of reduced cost and reduced environmental impact are not available without collaboration among individual devices. If a first raised window shade were insufficient, then a second could be raised. If window shade raising without the use of a heater were insufficient, then the heater could be turned on, perhaps requiring less fuel consumption now that the raised window shades have contributed to the heating of the room. This simple example illustrates that it would be advantageous to have ways of controlling client devices so that they collaborate, bringing multiple resources to bear upon subjects of control.